Killing Fields Siem Reap (Genocide Museum) — Attraction in Siem Reap

A visit to Wat Thmey is recommended to all travellers who are interested in learning about the tragic destiny of millions of Cambodians who vanished under the Khmer Rouge. Wat Thmey is also known as Siem Reap’s Killing Fields with a pagoda and a memorial stupa reminding of the events between 1975 and 1979. Under Pol Pot’s regime, the pagoda served as a prison. Many innocent people were kept and tortured here until they confessed a crime they did not commit. They were then killed and buried nearby. Some of the remains of these victims have been exhumed and placed in the memorial stupa near the pagoda. Together with photos, they share bone-chilling insights into the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge. While the memorial is significantly smaller in scale compared to the memorial in the Tuol Sleng (S21) Prison and Choeung Ek killing fields in Cambodia’s capital, it still serves as an important reminder for all local Cambodian’s living in the area. Today, the pagoda serves again as a monastery. There is also an orphanage and school. Despite its dark past, the laughter of the children and the sounds of daily Cambodian life in the background prove that the people living in this area are leaving the dark past behind and...

I hate giving such a place a bad review since it has major historical significance.

However, it is so poorly maintained and the person at the door is so rude that it is just not worth going into it.

The person at the door asks you for 3$. I paid her 10$ and then she complained that the bill was "too big" and that she didn't have change. Not sure what other bill I could have given her given that 10$ is the smallest denomination around here. I don't know if this is the classic "I don't have change" scam but seeing it at a memorial place + buddhist temple really made me sour. We spent five minutes going back and forth (with arguments shifting to "the bill is not new enough"). In the end as I decided to give up, my tuktuk driver came and lent me 3$.

Once you get inside you have no idea what's going on. There are a bunch of residential buildings, temples, all interspersed between a couple of memorials. No signs, no guides, no whatever.

If you are only visiting Siem Reap in Cambodia then maybe go check this place out. But if you've been to the one in Phnom Penh (or are planning to) then you should forget about this one until they actually get their...

Inside a pagoda/monastery is a self-guided tour of a killing field (you have the option for a guide. I prefer this site to the one near Phnom Penh because there's a greater focus and information on the Khmer Rouge tactics and the daily toils innocent people were subjected to. I got a better sense of the victims' lives during Pol Pot's regime like having to build irrigation systems, transporting most of the rice for China, working on rice paddies, and eating meager low nutrient soups. There are many photos of Cambodians during the Khmer Rouge regime and accompanying first person narratives and descriptions interwoven amongst temples, lush plants, and monks (men and children) in their distinctive orange regalia. Aside from Pol Pot you get a better sense of the regular people who inflicted brutality and were part of the regime. The serenity, quietude, and peaceful atmosphere makes it difficult to imagine that it's the same space where many were killed or slowly starved, cried and screamed, and dumped in a well or...